Disbelief
by Caladria101
Summary: She stared at him in disbelief rated for one not so very bad word. SJ
1. Chapter 1

She stared at him in disbelief.

Never before had she ever heard him use that tone on her – well, not since that night had happened anyway. Come to think of it, he'd never used it in a non-official capacity even before that.

That tone – the one that had every Air Force officer and most of the civilian contractors – with the obvious exception of Daniel – running to do whatever it was that he'd ordered them to do.

She couldn't _believe_ he'd just used it on her.

He'd hardly even used it in the field – come to think of it – he'd bark and yell, sure, but he wouldn't use _that_ tone. Not even on Daniel when he was being particularly enthusiastic.

His "I am in charge – do it or be sorry" tone. Or his command tone when she wasn't busy being livid at him.

And she was livid. Furious. She could practically work her way through the thesaurus with all the anger rolling off her. How _dare_ he?

Did he honestly think that she was going to roll over and take it like a submissive little colonel? He was in for a shock. A rather large one.

And then a weekend on her couch. If he was lucky – if he wasn't, she just might kick his sorry arrogant ass back to D.C. and tell him to stay there. Permanently.

She wasn't joking either. This… this… _thing_ that they had going would only work if he never used that tone on him again.

Actually, there were several things that were never going to work again if he didn't back down, right now.

Ba'al had nothing on a woman who'd just had that tone used on her.

Seriously, did he expect her to be three feet in the air before she thought to ask, "How high?"!

So not going to happen.

He was about to realise this, in a fairly shocking way. Wouldn't that be a surprise for him? That she'd only shut up and agreed with him before because she had to.

Shut up and agreed to a certain extent, anyway.

Actually, maybe he was as stupid as he made out to be. There was no other way he could have missed that half the time, she blatantly didn't agree with him. Unless he was blind.

If he wasn't, she could always arrange it.

And he was still staring at like he was wondering why she didn't just jump to it like a good little soldier! The jokes he made about it, anybody would've thought that he'd realised that she had a mind of her own.

Apparently not.

Arrogant bastard.

He was starting to look uncomfortable, like this wasn't going the way he planned.

Like he ever planned anything. Hah! He left that up to her, didn't he? Well, now, she's playing against him tonight, so he's on his own.

Scared?

He should be.

A woman scorned had nothing on her.

Women scorned, for example, didn't have advanced hand to hand combat skills.

Not that he didn't – but if it came to that, then he'd try not to hurt her.

She was fairly sure that she wouldn't let that thought inhibit her actions.

He'd always said she was a little tense, although she hadn't heard that particular complaint these past few months.

Every fibre in her body, she was sure, was screaming her rage at him.

He'd always been fairly good at reading her body – now was no exception to the rule.

Uncomfortable was slowing turning to a more basic fight-or-flight response.

She still hadn't said anything. If he were a passive observer, he probably would've congratulated her on psyching out the enemy.

She levelled him with an icy gaze that he did well to return, even if those brown eyes were slightly pleading.

"Excuse me?" she said, cutting across the silence that had pervaded the entire house.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I just hope you like this better than the uploader did…

As soon as the words left his mouth, the subtle shift in her stance and the look in her eye was enough to make him regret it.

Although _why_, he had no idea – f'cryin' out loud, what about that was so terrible?

She was overreacting. And being unreasonable. And a lot of other polysyllabic words that he wasn't going to think of right now.

Was this it? Was he just going to roll over and play good puppy for the rest of this? Apologise when he'd done nothing wrong.

God, the last time she'd given anyone that look, she'd _shot_ them the next second.

What had he done? Eaten a baby?

"F'cryin out loud," he growled, turning away from her and scrubbing his hand through his hair. Regarding the wall for a second, his mind raced.

He could deny everything. Whatever it was, he hadn't done it. Wasn't his fault, wasn't his problem.

For a fleeting second he considered running off back to Washington, leaving this mess that somehow they'd created together and slamming the door on it. She'd been mad all weekend, even if she wasn't saying.

If this was making her this unhappy, was it worth the stress it was putting on both of them? It was barely worth her time, anyway. _He_ was barely worth it.

She was doing this – _she_ was screwing them up royally, and he had no idea why. She seemed to be doing her best to piss him off and god help him, it was _working_. He was mad at her, he was mad at himself, and he was mad at the pair of them together.

Nearly a damn decade, and this was the best they could come up with? A petty fight over… over _nothing_?

"Carter, what the _hell_ is up with you?" he demanded, spinning round to look her in the eye - frustrated beyond his already short breaking point. If he was going down, he was going down so damn hard that they wouldn't know what hit him. Never let it be said that O'Neill backed down from a fight.

Well, it was said often about the personal stuff, but he'd conveniently ignore that.

He searched her face, trying to find something, a clue, a hint, an anything that would tell him what the hell _was_ going on with her. This wasn't Carter. Not the Carter he knew.

_Not the Carter he loved_, his subconscious supplied unhelpfully.

She was looking at him with pure ire in her eyes now, the fire that he so admired turned on him, and not in a good way. There was something else, though, something that she wasn't telling him. Something big, because she didn't sweat over the little things.

And he dreaded finding out what it was - when you'd been through everything she'd been through and done everything she'd done, there was a lot more in 'little things' than most people had.

And she wouldn't tell him. Good Carter's were good soldiers – they deal. They didn't ask for help, they didn't even like taking help when it was offered. It was irritating the hell out of him at that very second.

It didn't help that a good Carter and a good O'Neill were perfect blueprints of each other.

He balled his hands into fists, shoving them in his pocket to resist the urge to either try to shake some sense into her, or just to hold her.

How was he supposed to play the hero and save the day if she didn't tell him how to fix it?

F'cryin' out loud, how was he supposed to know what was wrong unless she told him? He wasn't a miracle worker, he wasn't her – he just did the grunt work.

He was watching her warily now, looking for the signs like he had in the field, looking for the slight shift of weight before _that_ mood, or the glance to the left before _that_ action. He'd used it to co-ordinate with her, once. It just seemed wrong that he was using it against her.

There was still no response.

"Look," he came out with, after the silent accusation had become too much to deal with. "Maybe I'll head back to DC; I'll catch you later, maybe."

He glanced at her once more, and then turned to go. That last word hadn't meant to come out with the finality it had done, but there was nothing he could do about that. What's done was done, and he was starting to wonder if they were… done.


End file.
